


The Whole Being Dead Thing

by ChibiDawn23



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23487283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiDawn23/pseuds/ChibiDawn23
Summary: BEETLEJUICE THE MUSICAL. A little unconventional mix of the cast album and the movie, oneshots revolving around various characters (although mostly the Maitlands at the moment).
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. What Is This Feeling?

**Author's Note:**

> TAKING REQUESTS-just keep in mind I've never seen the musical itself, so if you want me to write something that I can't get from the cast recording, you're going to have to spoil it for me (and I do, I want ALL the spoilers).

"Can you _believe_ that guy?" Adam Maitland was fuming. Barbara sat on top of a pile of boxes, watching her husband pace. She'd never seen him so worked up before. Her fingers clenched the white bedsheet she'd been hiding under earlier, turning her knuckles white. Or, whiter. She had noticed she looked a lot paler now that she was…

 _Dead_. It still didn't feel real to say that word. Especially not with the emotions she was experiencing right now.

"Honestly. What an ass-what a jerk!" If he could have, Adam would've been wearing holes in the attic floorboards.

_Thank God they couldn't actually fall through them anymore._

They'd known Lydia Deetz, what, like a half hour? Maybe it was the fact that she was the only person besides Beetle…Beetlejoos? Beetle….Barbara had been too terrified while the purple-haired, green-tinged demon had been spelling his name out for them, anyway, that could see her and Adam? Or that she was so young? Or Lydia's story, that her mother was dead and her father was so in denial over it that he ignored his only family he had left? Something motherly was stirring in Barbara Maitland. It was feeling she'd never known if she was ever going to feel. But she could feel it. It was making her want to hug Lydia and tell her it was all going to be okay.

It was also making her want to slug Charles Deetz.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one who felt that way. "Adam," she called out to her husband. If he could have been red in the face, he probably would have been. _Don't think that can happen if your heart's not actually beating_ - _God_ was this being dead thing confusing!

Adam was still pacing, swearing half-hearted curse words under his breath, like he was trying to protect her ears from the language. " _Adam!"_ Barbara yelled.

Adam froze in his tirade, spinning around to face her. _"What?"_ he barked. His eyes went wide and his hands flew to his mouth as Barbara shrank back, just a little. "God, Barbara, I-" He ran his hands over his face and through his hair. "I…sorry. I'm sorry. I just, I can't _believe_ that someone would….according to Lydia, she hasn't even been _gone_ that long, and he's….If _you_ ever died, I probably wouldn't ever get married aga…" He trailed off, realizing what he'd just said by the sad look on his wife's face. He bit his lip, took a breath, and came to sit down next to her.

"This sucks," he proclaimed, and Barbara choked out a laugh as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, it does," she agreed. "I mean, us being dead, but also, poor Lydia, you know? I can't imagine how she must feel right now. The look on her face…"

Adam glanced down to see tears streaming down his wife's face. "Oh. Honey." He kissed the top of her forehead, pulled her to him. "Hey. It's all right. I feel the same way."

"Why?" Barbara whispered.

Adam frowned. "I don't know…I mean, I guess with his wife being gone, it's sort of natural, maybe, that he'd try to find someone to fill the gap?"

"Not that," Barbara countered. "Why do we _feel_ like this? We barely know Lydia, but I just..."

"Oh. That." Adam was silent, contemplating. He wrapped his arms around his knees. "It was weird," he said finally. "I've never felt that strongly about _anything_ -except maybe marrying you."

"I know," Barbara said with an embarrassed smile. "I thought it was pretty hot, watching you just now."

"Really?" Adam gasped, feeling something in him swell with pride. Then he coughed. "Um, anyway. I just, I wanted to put him through the _wall_ for doing that to Lydia."

He turned to Barbara. "Is that what it's like?" he questioned.

"What _what's_ like?"

"Being a dad?" He rested his chin on his arms. "That feeling like you'd put someone through a wall for making your kid cry?"

Barbara was quiet. "I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, we never….so I don't…I feel the same way. Like I want to hug her and whisper in her ear that it's all going to be okay and protect her from whatever's making her sad…" She looked up at her husband. "Is that what it feels like to be a mom?"

"Maybe," Adam said. "I'd like to think so, I guess."

"I want to help her," Barbara decided. "I mean, I don't know _how_ we can do that, we're not, you know, we can't hug her or take her shopping or whatever it is you do in this situation, but…" She stood up. "She just seems like a great kid. I can't just hide in the attic."

"No, you're right. We should go find her." Adam took Barbara's hand. "We can at least tell her we're here, if she ever needs us. I mean we're not her pa-" He trailed off, his voice catching. _That word…it's something we'll never be._

Barbara squeezed his hand. "She needs a friend more than anything right now," she suggested quietly.

Adam nodded. "We can do that."

_Ready…set..._

Above them, they heard footsteps on the roof. Adam looked at Barbara.

"Lydia," she breathed. Her eyes widened in panic. "Oh God, Adam, what if-"

He was already popping the window open. "Come on!" Adam urged her, reaching back for her hand. "Let's go!"

Now wasn't the time to hem and haw and wait around, like they'd done with so many other things in their life. They'd just met Lydia. No way were they about to lose her now.


	2. Hello? New Neighbors

**Winter River, CT**

The Victorian mansion on the hill was haunted.

The place had stood silent for years and fallen into disrepair. The white paint was peeling away in the sun. Neighborhood kids on a dare had broken several windows. The house had been up for sale for months but so far the realtor, Jane, hadn't had any takers. Nobody wanted a 'prime example of a Victorian fixer-upper.'

Nobody especially wanted a Victorian fixer-upper in which lights came on at night….or that started fixing itself during the daytime.

Folks in Winter River had started to notice that the windows were slowly being replaced. Or that the porch steps weren't quite as creaky when the kids would dare each other to play 'Ding Dong Ditch' up on the hill.

The "For Sale" sign disappeared one day. Jane had sold the house, but she couldn't tell anybody anything about the new owners- everything had been done online or over the phone. She did say that she thought it was a couple, and that they sounded young.

The ghosts started to make appearances in town, but they were so few or far between that people _still_ couldn't get a good handle on who they were. Rich at the hardware store mentioned over coffee one morning that a short man with brown hair and a gray plaid shirt had been in to buy a few sheets of plywood. He hadn't spoken much and paid in cash. Charlie at the secondhand store noticed one afternoon after his lunch break that the wooden crib that had been one of the window display pieces had been sold. Ty, his teenage employee, said the guy had come in, asked on the price, and paid in cash. Danny, who drove truck for FedEx, said he was dropping on packages on their porch almost every other day, but when he'd ring the doorbell, nobody would answer. A couple of times he'd even pretended to check the oil, or check his tire pressure, lingering to see if anybody would come out of the door. And LeAnne at the greenhouse reported that she'd seen a young blonde woman putting two tomato plants in the back of a tan-colored Chrysler Town & Country and head out of town. Lots of people said they'd seen them, but nobody had talked to them or seen them for more than a minute or two at a time. A few well-meaning townsfolk had knocked on the door of the house on the hill, but nobody had answered. Some had tried striking up conversations with them at the checkout counter, but all they received was a nod or a handshake and a "Thank you," and then they were gone.

They were polite. They were supporting the local economy. But they were like ghosts. Always there out of the corner of your eye, a little unsettling, but not necessarily bothersome.

A few months later, the ghosts would make their presence known in a much more... _noticeable_ way.

Because it turns out the house on the hill really _was_ haunted…

Just not yet.


	3. Plenty of Time

Strains of calypso music drifted down the stairs of the house on the hill. Up in the attic, Adam Maitland sat cross-legged on the floor, a piece of sandpaper in his left hand, sliding it back and forth over the top rail of a wooden crib.

He'd spotted it in the window of the antique store in downtown Winter River, and knew they'd had to have it. He was pretty sure he'd overpaid for it. An online search had placed it new in the early 1900s, and for an antiques addict like Adam, it just screamed, "Fix me!"

It would be worth it, though, when he was staring down at his little guy sleeping in it.

Someday.

He ran a finger over the rail, satisfied that it was as smooth as he could get it, and reached for the can of stain next to his knee. Adam had hemmed and hawed over whether or not it would be better in a darker stain than a lighter one, and in the end, chosen the darker one to match the interior wood of the rest of the house.

" _Adam, honey," his wife had teased him, "the baby isn't going to care what color the crib is and whether or not it's a period piece with the house."_

" _But I will," he'd argued. He'd run a hand through his hair, embarrassed. "I just want it to be perfect."_

 _His wife's smile had lit up the living room. "It will be," she assured him_. _Then she pointed at it. "But I'm not helping you carry that thing in-you're on your own."_

At least Barbara humored him. Adam thought back to one of their last nights in Philadelphia before they'd moved.

_He and Barbara had invited over a couple of friends for a get together one evening after Adam got off of work. The men were downstairs in Adam's 'man cave,' as Barbara put it. Adam preferred to call it the 'smoking room' even though he didn't smoke. The Eagles were on the flat screen and Adam was propped on one elbow at the bar, watching the game, when Jake came sauntering into the room from upstairs, a pizza box in one hand._

" _Food," Jake announced, dropping the box on the top of the liquor cabinet._

_Adam leapt up from his spot and hastily moved the box to the high top table. Off Jake's strange look and a bark of laughter from their friend Ryan, he hastily explained, "That's a new piece." He ran a hand over the top. "Cherry wood, cast iron hinges and handles. I found it at this place downtown-"_

" _Barbara's not giving you any?" Ryan laughed. Adam chuckled along with him awkwardly as his two friends came back to the bar and pulled up a stool on either side of him._

" _I-"_

" _I never thought I'd say this," Jake said, pulling a slice of pizza from the box, "but you and Barbara…you guys need to have a kid or something. I'm pretty sure that'd be cheaper than your little hobby here."_

" _This is why Jake's single," Ryan kidded and Jake flipped him off as Adam laughed shortly."Besides, Barbara's already got a kid, she married Adam," Ryan joked, sending Jake into a fit of laughter and Adam was saved from a comeback as the Eagles scored a touchdown._

"Look at these jugs!"

Adam nearly dropped his brush, fumbling to catch it before it landed on the floor. He managed to catch it with his bare hand, staining it a lovely dark shade of walnut. He wiped his hand on his jeans as his wife of almost ten years, Barbara, came sailing into the attic, arms full of her latest pottery project.

Barbara Maitland flounced onto the floor next to him and shook one of the terra cotta pieces in her husband's face. "I think I finally got the shape right!" she said proudly. "These are the best ones yet!" She set them down next to her and added, "Which is good, because _someone_ has to fund your restoration projects."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "And how much is on the credit card for glaze this month?" he countered. He laughed and pulled her close, giving her a hug. "They look great, honey. The salmon is an interesting choice of color."

"It was on sale," Barbara shrugged. "I might have to go into town sometime soon, I need to pick up some more packing peanuts so I can ship these out." Barbara's latest hobby was a somewhat lucrative one; her pieces were sold through her online shop, MaitClay. "Hey," she said after a moment. "So tomorrow's the day."

Adam set his paintbrush carefully in the can of stain and felt his palms start to sweat. "Oh….is it really?" he asked.

"Mmmhmm." Barbara's cheery tone had suddenly turned serious. "Ten years."

He laughed, sounding a little forced. "Where does the time go…"

"I know!" Barbara picked up her hair and tossed it behind one shoulder. "So are we ready for this?"

Adam got up from his spot on the floor, started pacing the attic. The floorboards groaned underneath him and he carefully skirted around them. "I mean, that was the plan, right?" he said. "Permanent house, car paid off…baby was next on the list."

"Yep!" Barbara agreed. "And I mean, we've already got a crib, so…" She gestured at Adam's project.

"Oh, it's not, not yet, it's not finished," Adam stammered. Barbara got up and walked over to him, carefully avoiding the spot where the floorboards creaked. "I should really, um, we should really get that fixed," Adam said. "Darn thing's a health hazard. Babies and creaky floorboards do _not_ mix."

"Right?" Barbara forced out a laugh. "And oh, the downstairs bathroom-the sink is leaking again."

"Aw, are you serious?" Adam sighed. "I _just_ fixed that."

"Yeah," Barbara said awkwardly. "Makes you think if we can't even get the house in order, there's no way we can have a kid, right? Like we can barely keep up with our own lives, and we wanna try to add a baby in there?"

Adam nodded. "I know! It's crazy. Maybe we should hold off, just a little longer, huh?"

"Yeah," Barbara agreed, almost sounding relieved at the prospect. "No need to jump in." She wrapped her arms around her husband's waist. "We've got plenty of time."

" _Barbara, honey, put the plate down," Samantha chided her, and Barbara paused, mid-sentence, and slowly let the plate drop to the coffee table. She looked at Samantha hesitantly._

" _Honey, it's time we had a talk," Elizabeth spoke up, off a look from Samantha. The three women curled up on the living room furniture and Barbara's two friends eyed her. "Honey, your pottery is beautiful, you know that, but you do realize that it's just a placeholder for what you really want, don't you?" Elizabeth asked. Elizabeth, Ryan's wife, was a staff psychologist for a big financial firm in downtown Philly._

_Barbara said nothing, waiting for her to continue. "You're so in control of everything that you're making pottery so you won't have to worry about screwing up a kid because you can't mold kids."_

_Barbara's response was so quiet that Samantha had to ask her to repeat it. "I'm sorry, Barb, what did you say?" she asked._

_Barbara looked up at them from wringing her hands and said, "We tried."_

_Her friends exchanged a look. "What do you mean?" Samantha asked._

_Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh Samantha, are you serious right now?" She grabbed Barbara's hand. "Why didn't you tell us you had a miscarriage?"_

_Samantha's face fell as it dawned on her. "Oh….honey," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."_

_Barbara let the tears fall. "About two months ago," she explained. "I..we…we were so excited. And then it just….I didn't feel right, and we went to the doctor and…" She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Anyway, um, the real reason Adam and I had you guys over is because we're, um…we're moving. We found this little place in Connecticut and it's not far from Adam's family and…we just need to get out of here. Away from the memories. Start over."_

"Barbara?"

Barbara jolted, realized her husband was looking at her strangely. "Honey, are you okay?"

She nodded. "I'm fine. I'm sorry. Must've spaced out for a minute."

"You look like you'd seen a ghost," Adam said gently. He took her hand. "Let's head downst-"

Across the room, Adam's music cranked itself up to a deafening level, making both of the Maitlands jump. "Whoa!" Adam gasped, pressing a hand to his heart. "Guess we better add the wiring to that list!" he yelled over the music. Taking Barbara's hand, he made to cross the room to turn the music down to something manageable.

They didn't hear the floorboards give their final creak. All they remembered was screaming in surprise as the floor dropped out from under them, and everything going black.

And the thought that "plenty of time" had happened in no time at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Easter Eggs: Rob McClure was living in Philly during his time in the show. (There was the whole AmTrak thing, so I don't know how that ever came out with him). The conversations with Barbara and Adam's upperclass friends as well as the miscarriage came from an interview with Eddie Perfect about how the show and lyrics had changed from the DC run.


	4. Time To Let Go

Adam watched from the attic window as a screaming little girl in a green beret and vest went sprinting off the front porch, pigtails flying behind her. “Now that’s just uncalled for,” he sighed. “I can’t believe Lydia’s _enjoying_ all this.”

“Well, she’s got her new _friend_ ,” Barbara spat from her perch on the attic step. “And her father’s gone…she’s got everything that she wanted.”

His wife had her arms wrapped around her waist, staring at all of their things boxed up in the corner. She looked back at him and pointed. “And we’re stuck up here, like prisoners in our own house.”

Adam leaned against the window. “This backfired completely. We agreed to that ghost’s plan, and that didn’t work. We agreed to help Lydia scare her father, and well, he got scared but it wasn’t by us, and we wanted our house back and we’re _stuck_ up here.” He closed his eyes and tapped his head against the window lightly. “We haven’t gotten _anything_ that _we_ wanted. Maybe we should just _go_. Move on, or, or whatever.”

Barbara was wandering the attic, running her fingers over the boxes and sheets of things they’d never unpacked before they’d died, and the Deetzes had never gotten around to throwing out or giving away. “Look at this stuff,” she said after a moment. “God, it’s depressing.”

Adam opened one eye and looked at her, confused. “That came out of nowhere. Y-you don’t like this stuff? Barbara…this is _our_ stuff.” He pushed himself off the wall and came to stand by her, unconsciously avoiding the spot in the floorboards where they’d fallen through.

“It’s a shrine to the feelings we’ve been repressing,” Barbara told him.

Adam saw the corner of the crib he’d been painstakingly restoring poking out from under a white sheet. Mixed emotions filled him. “You sound like Elizabeth,” he said aloud.

Raucous laughter filtered through the locked attic door, and the two of them froze, silently praying that Beetlejuice kept his distance.

“It’s the stuff of our lives,” Barbara said, waving at it all. “And all of it’s _shit_.”

Adam’s jaw dropped. Barbara _never_ swore. “What? Barbara-”

She was pulling something off the shelf. A dusty desk reference for Windows 95. “None of this stuff matters! Books on computer…” She spied something on the floor, half-buried in a box labeled ATTIC. She pulled it out, snorting, and held it out to Adam. “A ‘Spin Your Own Yarn Kit? Did you even _try_ this?”

Adam nodded, running a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be,” he admitted.

“Ohhhhh….” Barbara was laughing even as she pulled something else out of the corner, a heavier box. “Home brewed kombucha!” She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, that tasted like a-”

Adam interrupted her, “We’re not kombucha people, we did find that out,” he cut in.

“What are we doing, Adam?” Barbara turned to him, gesturing around the room. “We’re trapped in the attic and that…. _thing_ is down there with Lydia doing God-knows-what…” She threw her arms up in the air. “We have to _do_ something!”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Whoa. Where’s this all coming from?” He frowned. “Barbara…what can we….I mean, we’re not exactly-”

Barbara walked over to him, placing her hands on his shoulders. “All I know is I can’t spend the rest of our-our _afterlife_ up here in this attic. I don’t want to spend the next 125 years or whatever we have left in this house _hiding_ up here, okay?”

Adam brushed a piece of her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “So, what do you suggest?” he asked with a grin. His wife smiled and put her arms around him.

“I don’t know. Maybe something will come to me. Maybe there’s something up here we can use…” Barbara flipped her hair over her shoulder with a wide grin, and pulled Adam over into the corner. “You start over here.” He bent down and rummaged through the boxes. Half of them he’d never had the chance to unpack. Inside one of them, he found a modelers kit with glue and several different shades of paint. “I didn’t even use this,” he said. “And somehow I don’t think modeling glue is going to chase off that demon.” He frowned, setting the kit back in the box. “Barbara, you’re right. I think I was hiding.” He glanced back at her. “We kept putting things off when we should’ve just jumped in and done them.” Adam pulled her down to sit with him on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he confessed.

“For what?” Barbara asked him, concerned at his change in mood.

“We should’ve just tried again,” he whispered. “I made excuses and we kept putting it off and…now you’ll never get to experience that.” Adam shook his head, looking at the floor. “After we had….when we lost…we ran away and I hid in the attic and…”

“Adam Maitland, knock it off.” Barbara put a finger under his chin and made him look at her. “You stop that. It wasn’t just you. It takes two people to have a baby, remember. And I’m just as guilty as you of filling my life with other things because I wasn’t mentally prepared to try again. I was so scared I’d be a bad mom, or that something would happen again that I threw myself into pottery and gardening and…and…” She shook her head at the sound of shrill shrieks coming from beneath them. “Lydia needs us, Adam. Maybe this was all mean to be, us dying here, her coming here. We need each other.”

“But Barbara, Lydia’s not _ours_ ,” Adam argued. “And it doesn’t seem like she wants _anybody_ , anymore, she’s perfectly happy with that green-haired creep downstairs.” He scuffed the floor with his shoe. “Maybe there isn’t a place for us here anymore.”

“No. Absolutely not, I don’t believe that for a second, and I’m _not_ leaving Lydia here with _him_.” Barbara pointed downstairs. She held Adam’s chin her hands, slipped her hands down to his shoulders. “No more hiding. We can’t ignore that Lydia needs us. Adam, we need to stay. She needs people who won’t run away like her father and that weird self-help guru he’s sleeping with did. It’s like we said before. She needs a _friend_. She needs someone to know she’s being listened to. Someone who knows what it’s like…to be invisible.”

A thought occurred to Adam, and he turned to grip Barbara’s shoulders. “Is _that_ the reason she sees us?” he wondered. “Nobody else can, but _Lydia_ …..Lydia can. Maybe she recognized….we’re like her. I mean, she’s obviously younger and _way_ smarter and-”

Barbara laughed and he stood up, pacing the floor. “But we spent our lives being invisible, just like she said she was. But she can see us. And we….we see _her_.”

Adam shook his head, looking at his wife. “No. You’re right. We can’t go. Not until I know….until _we_ know….that she’s going to be all right.”

Barbara’s eyes sparkled. “I love you, Adam Maitland,” she said with a smile. She stood up on her tiptoes and wrapped him in a kiss. When they finally broke apart, she looked at him. “Okay. So what are we gonna do about Beetlejuice?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Charles and Delia will come back with an exorcist for the bio-exorcist.”


End file.
